The probation system / by Cecil Leeson.

  • Cecil Leeson
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The probation system / by Cecil Leeson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    be a juvenile or a first offender. As is pointed out by Mr. A. W. Towne, of the New York State Probation Commission, “ to fail to place the offender under a vigorous corrective discipline when such a course is clearly indicated by the circumstances of the offence, and the previous character and present dis- position of the offender, is an evil only less serious than to imprison the offender when the circum- stances would justify his release on probation.” One method by which the number of unsuitable cases may be reduced is to refrain from applying probation to epileptic or defective children. The ordinary methods of probation fail to reach children of this kind; and, since it is from these that the criminal problem of the future will chiefly come, it is necessary that they be provided for by the institution of court clinics, where mental and physical abnor- malities may be discovered and dealt with.1 The release of unsuitable offenders on probation has led some critics to say that, so far at any rate as adult offenders are con- cerned, probation is simply a method of “ turning criminals loose on society. Waiving the obvious retort that every 1 See Chap. I., pp. 24—30.
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